The Online Photographer

Open Mike: Judged (Editorial)

I seem to be being judged from a lot of quarters these days.

When I was a second-year student at the Corcoran School of Art, the School bought a city brownstone in the Dupont Circle area of D.C. to use as a dorm. It was a city neighborhood of two-lane streets lined with leafy trees, sidewalks, and row houses. I was to share the lowest unit, that was half above and half below street level; it had a tiny low-fenced yard and its own entrance a handful of steps down. The doorway at the other end of the unit, leading into the building proper, was right next to the laundry machines, which turned out to be a luxury. I had been assigned a roommate, a freshman, who hadn't arrived yet.

I was excited to be moving. The brownstone row house had been a gracious home when it was built, and had beautiful woodwork everywhere, admittedly a little the worse for more than a century of wear and tear. My unit had gorgeous built-in bookcases along the wall. Most important things first: the night before moving day, unable to sleep, I ferried a bunch of my books over to the new place in the middle of the night, and lovingly arranged them on some of the shelving. To be honest about my motives, I probably had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to claim some bookshelf space for myself before my as-yet-unmet roommate had a chance to hog it all for himself. (I needn't have worried, by the way. He loved his infernal prog-rock turned up to 11, but I never saw him near a book. I left half the bookshelf space for him and he used it for folded clothes.)

The next day, my younger brother Scott and our mother helped me move in. We brought over my scant and rather sorry collection of possessions in one pickup-truck load. I unlocked the door. While Mom and I strategized the unloading, Scott grabbed a box and carried it inside.

When he came back out, he said, "Your new roommate sure is stuck-up."

I was puzzled. "Is he here?"

"No, but he's a literary snob. Take a look at his books when you go inside. You'll see."

He started naming titles, all of which were, um, familiar. Of course I exclaimed, "Those are MY books, you idiot!! I moved them in last night!"

Scott burst out laughing. Judged! And skewered. So it goes.

I still don't know if he knew they were mine and he was just needling me. That was probably true, come to think. Scott was wise. He knew me better than any other human on the face of the Earth ever has or ever will. I've never thought of this before this moment, but it's nice that the person who knew me best liked me so much. That's something to be grateful for. Of course it did bring him joy to give me a hard time.

Hungry angry lonely tired
Humans don't like advice, so this is merely a suggestion. I interact with a lot of people every day in one way or another, often at a bit of a remove, which possibly enables something in the way of objectivity. And it seems to me that, because of the run-up to the American election, people are worked up at the moment—agitated, unsettled, maybe angry. A little quicker to find fault, render judgement, snap back, argue. Wound up tighter than usual one way or another.

My suggestion, and that's all it is, is that we might all need to pay a little extra attention in the coming month to reacting to life and to others with patience, tolerance, kindliness, and compassion. If something "triggers" you and you flash up with that little hit-'em-back feeling in your gut, pause, say "God, help me" or some other three-word prayer silently to yourself, and count five in-and-out breaths. Then respond. I think it might be safe to assume that people aren't going to be quite their best selves right now. And that might include me, and maybe even you. I just think we're all going to be a little tense for a spell—at least here in the FUSA*, and possibly elsewhere.

Peace!

Mike

*Formerly United States of America.

P.S. Overtly political comments will be read but not published.

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

MikeR: "Heard this on a radio (remember those?) program a few days ago: 'Just like me.' When regarding a person who may be 100% opposed to you or your ideas, think, for example, that they likely went to kindergarten, just like me. Needed to find a date for the senior prom, just like me. This tends to limit 'othering' other humans."

Mike replies: Just so. It's excellent advice. I'm definitely in that habit. When someone gives offense and I rush to blame, my first thought is, "have I ever done that?" The answer is almost always yes: said something rude, cut someone off in traffic, gave someone the finger, yelled for no good reason, on goes the list. It instantly makes me a lot of more forgiving.

A few years ago a group of teenagers, boys and girls, were having an animated conversation right outside my window at midnight. Did I ever do that? Yes, when I was their age, and the last thing I wanted was some grumpy oldster who was past his precious bedtime breaking up our socializing and making the girl I was interested in go home. They're only at the lake for a week or two. And they're only young once. I turned the light on and read a book until they left on their own.

Michelle's Big-House Job

Kind of a whirlwind weekend! The first observation: whenever I do something other than work on TOP, it takes me away from...working on TOP. Over the years many people have suggested I do many other things, but the problem is, if I'm not working on the blog then the blog doesn't get done. And I need the blog to get done because that's the largest part of how I've made a living since 2009. (I've had to diversify a bit in recent years.)

The real estate photo job was veeeeery interesting. A friend who is getting into real estate sales, Michelle Kremmin, asked me to do the photos for her first "big" house, meaning a listing with a substantial asking price. It's the first photography job I've done since COVID (other than a few favors for friends), and also the first time I've ever done a listing photo assignment (I did a few shots for my own houses when I sold them). Here's the listing, but I'll suggest you look at the photos on your phone, as it appears they are optimized for that. They don't look great on my 27" computer. Probably my fault. I couldn't find image specs for the realtor Michelle works for, nor could I locate anyone who knew if they have any official image standards. Maybe such a thing doesn't exist, but it's obvious I gave them pictures that are too small. Live and learn.

To see the pictures better you can look at the set on SmugMug. Can you guess which ones were shot on the iPhone? Some are obvious. Maybe all. (Please tell me if that link works. It's supposed to show you a page with all the images already open, and it's supposed to ask you for a password if you try to download anything. If a few people could test that out for me I'd appreciate it. I'm new to SmugMug.)

I ended up delivering 38 pictures and charged $16 per prepared shot. No idea if that's cheap, expensive, or somewhere in the middle. I don't know anything about the market. I quoted Michelle $400 for 25 shots and then asked her permission to provide more. The only one she didn't use is the closeup of the three plants in the bay window. The pictures were all individually corrected but in some cases not quite to the point of being printable.  I just poked around the web for recommendations and ended up making the images 1200 pixels in the long dimension and sRGB. My friend and Corcoran School of Art '85 classmate Jay Townsend recommended SmugMug.

To answer the question of how my fealty to the truth would hold up, I did do a little Photoshopping, but mainly on things that could have been moved, such as a cord I forgot to hide, and things that are temporary and ephemeral anyway, like leaves. They're all pretty accurate and truthful pics of the real house.

As far as spaces are concerned, it's interesting. I've always been sensitive to the rendering of spaces, and I'm not in favor of making things look bigger by using wide-angle lenses. But on the other hand, people are getting accustomed to what we used to call "ultra-wide-angle" perspectives, because of the fact that many phones have very wide camera/lens modules. So my pictures kinda split the difference. They're a bit wider than I would have shot 10 or 20 years ago, but not so wide that they misrepresent the house (it's a big old house, with high ceilings and large rooms).

Main discovery: the job was a lot of work—five visits to the house including two to check the light and direction of the sun; three shoots, one main and two "cleanup"; a fair amount of driving; a fair amount of fretting and planning about weather; hours spent  in Adobe Camera Raw...

...But, I enjoyed it. If I didn't enjoy it, it would've been a pain. But I decided pretty early on that I was mainly having fun, and that made it easy to just go ahead and embrace the work.

It helps that houses have been a lifelong interest, although nothing I've ever really talked about. This interest has never had anything to do with my professional life; I just like houses is all. I love looking at floorplans, enjoy watching homebuilding videos (and used to enjoy several magazines about it, especially New Old House), and am always alert for interesting houses as I wander the little corner of the world I inhabit. I have a mental collection of houses around and about that I particularly like (for instance "The Handsomest House in Hall" at my Flickr page). Since the Internet came along, I also make a recreation of poking around on realty sites snooping into houses of all sorts. I'm interested in residential architecture but no other kind, particularly. I've read most of A Pattern Language.

Listing photos would be a nice way of getting to do interior photography without being a real interior photographer, seems to me. Architectural Digest quality interior photography is very fastidious, involved, equipment-heavy work. And anyway, does anyone buy it any more?

My old Fuji (a 2014 X-T1) was pressed into service, and I also did some of the shooting with the iPhone, which worked pretty well but which I won't do again. I did most of the shooting with a well-loved Fuji lens, the XF 14mm ƒ/2.8 R (21mm equivalent). I shot with lots of "air" (more in the shot than needed) so I could do geometrical corrections later. There are various tricks when shooting to make geometrical correction easier in post. My rule is that I try to do geometrical corrections when I can, but when I can't—in a tight powder room for instance—I make the converging or diverging verticals and horizontals strong and obvious. My other lenses are primes, and my thought is that I should consider a standard zoom for outdoor, details, and other supporting shots. Or maybe I just don't need it.

I'll probably ask my son if I can have the X-H1 back. If he wants to keep it, I might get an X-T50. It has the sensor and stabilization of the X-T5 at a slightly lower price.

Mostly, I'm hungry to research the whole shebang. I'd like to talk to realty companies, RE photographers, and agents, and learn more about standards and conventions in the field. How much do photographers charge? How many agents actually hire photographers? I also need to figure out if I actually want to do more of this work going into the future, and how exactly to position myself—for example, do people confine themselves to specific areas of the market? I've already considered charging more to photograph cheaper, worse-looking houses—I figure it's more work to make the houses look nicer, so you'd need to be paid more, right? Not less.

Is anyone out there a real-estate photographer? I'd love to hear from you.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Bruce Katz: "Architectural Digest guy here ;-).

"I think you will find in short order that RE photography is not sustainable for the time and production values you have put into this project. To be competitive in this market, the entire shoot you did needs to be less than two hours in production time—including the post-production. You're competing with agents that shoot work themselves, or folks who offer photography, virtual walk-through videos, virtual staging and drone coverage for a few hundred dollars per project. Not a market that needs or can pay for creative work in any real fashion. If you want to try your hand at interior work, I would look toward the interior design / contractor / builder / architectural markets where the budgets are a little better and the production values are appreciated a little more.

"The upfront time necessary for success is considerable—marketing plans, portfolios, website, insurance requirements—it's a full time thing to make a go of it. Good luck!"

Mike replies: Thanks Bruce. Thankfully, though, I'm not trying to make a go of it...considering maybe one house per week during the temperate season as a weekend project. That might not work, I realize. Your insights are always valued however.

Christer Almqvist: "Three thing about the pictures: 1.) They were fit for purpose (old house). Subtle colours and not too dramatic light. 2.) A few ones could have profited from keystone correction, but there were other where converging lines were not disturbing. Not good was when verticals on one side of the picture were true verticals but the ones on the other side were not. Perhaps shooting from a bit lower than eye level would have been beneficial (garage picture). Converging lines in pictures of small spaces are OK. 3.) You charged much too little. (How much did you make per hour?)"

Mike replies: Interesting question. Wish I had kept track of hours.

Frank Linden: "I knew a guy who was doing this professionally in Sydney years ago and went to observe him at work one morning where he got through two residences. He was using a crop-sensor Canon with the 10–18mm zoom that was gaffer-taped to always be at the widest angle. He shot everything around ƒ/8 or ƒ/11 and for interiors he would do three exposures, one base exposure, one with flash bounced off the ceiling for fill, and one for the outside light. The camera was always on a tripod. All post production was done offshore, Philippines I think, where they would do all the exposure blending, verticals corrections etc. He was an employee of a company that did real estate photography so they had the whole system set up. They were not doing high-end places, more mid- to lower-end.

"The main thing I learned is that this is mostly photography as a commodity, knowing what the market wants and providing it. When I left him that day he was having a late lunch then off to shoot his third and final house of the day."

Mike replies: When I wanted to start a portrait business years ago, Carl encouraged me to cost everything out precisely and then figure out exactly how many shoots I would need to do per day to make a living. Then he told me to simply ask myself if I wanted to do that many portraits every day, week-in, week-out. Well, I carried out his suggestion seriously. And it was SCARY. I would have had to do something like two portraits a day three days a week and three portraits a day the other three days, with one day off. Not even counting the work involved in attracting and booking the commissions in the first place.

At the time, if I did one portrait in a day, it would take three and a half hours all counted, and pretty much wreck me for the rest of that day, and then I'd need to spend the next day doing something else to recover.

Richard G: "Here’s a link to Jamie who supervises a troupe of realty photographers. It’s hilarious."

Joel F Bartlett: "Having shot interiors and exteriors after remodels for a local design-build company for well over a decade, I’ll risk offering a a few observations.

"I shoot with designers looking over my shoulder and as a result, I know what they want to feature in the photos. You’ll need to chat with the listing agent to understand what they see as important things to emphasize for the listing. Shoot some other things too as they may be handy. Your job is to make the viewer imagine what it would be like for them and their possessions to live in that house.

"Shoot wide, you/they can always crop.

"How big an image? As big as you’ve got. I shoot with an APS-C camera, a Leica CL, and deliver a full size image after any agreed upon cropping. They can always make it smaller.

"SmugMug is my friend. I’ve used it for almost as long as it has existed. That’s how I deliver my images and show my own work.

"Dressing the set. Hopefully the agent helps here. The worst possible experience you can have is to be dropped into a house by yourself with the current family, pets, and clutter and you’re expected to make it look like Architectural Digest. They’re not paying you anywhere near enough to put up with that.

"Getting color 'right.' If the room was recently painted, the agent might hand you three Pantone samples and ask you to make the colors right. You’ll have to repeatedly explain how the color of the light in the room varies as there are multiple sources. I have repeatedly had this discussion with designers as I shoot kitchens with two different color LED lights, a weird fluorescent, and both direct and indirect sunlight (reflected off some odd colored wall). I will often shoot additional shots with a white color target to help deliver something like what the client wants.

"If the client wants both interior and exterior (through windows) color 'correct,' change extra as you’ll be spending some time in Photoshop.

"Lights? When I started doing this, I used studio strobes to attempt to get uniform lighting. At this point, most remodels are overlit so I don’t have to bring additional light. I use available interior and exterior light and do some post-processing as required. Lightroom’s graduated filters are your friend. Or, if you ever have to shoot a very dark bathroom, votive candles are your friend too.

"Rights? The agent will want to freely use your photos in any possible way for perpetuity. Price accordingly.

"Pay? It ain’t what it once was.

"In spite of this, I’ve enjoyed working with my clients."

Mike replies: Thanks Joel. Re "getting color right," you'll like this—Phil Davis, Professor Emeritus of Photography at the University of Michigan, author of Beyond the Zone System, and my de facto technical editor at Darkroom Techniques magazine, and a top car photographer in Detroit in the 1950s, had a dining room in the house he built at Whitmore Lake that had a George Nakashima table and a large plate-glass north-facing window. He understood color theory very well, so he painted all the walls of the room slightly different colors to enhance the effect of the light that was naturally reflected on each wall. You sensed the effect immediately upon entering the room but it was difficult to put your finger on exactly why it looked like that. Really quite stunning, and something I had never seen before and haven't seen since.

Leica Q3 43 Reader Comments

Ed note: The original article is here. The camera is here. If you want one from the first release, don't sleep.

-

Chris Kern: "Mike wrote,

...in keeping with Leica's service to photographers, you will not be forced to pay as little for the Q3 43 as you would for a common garden variety Q3: you get to pay $600 more. Although not a large premium, the little dab of added exclusivity is much appreciated and Leica is to be commended for offering this courtesy.

"Touché. Yes, Leica cameras and lenses seem outrageously priced—and the original 28mm Q3 at U.S. $6,300 and the new 43mm model at $6,900 are arguably especially expensive for fixed-lens 'enthusiast' cameras. But the Q3 is perpetually out of stock almost everywhere in the United States, and the Q3 43 is likely to become so shortly after it begins shipping. Like other Veblen goods, no doubt their high prices actually enhance their appeal. And, frankly, other than its high resolution, the 60mm full-frame sensor in the Q models isn’t particularly impressive.

"But in Leica’s defense, in addition to the spectacular quality of the 28mm ƒ/1.7 lens (I can’t speak for the new 43mm ƒ/2), the Q series firmware provides the most pleasant shooting experience I have ever encountered. After setting up appropriate 'profiles'—Leica’s term for specific clusters of settings that the user creates for particular purposes or types of subjects—typically the only shooting adjustments that need to be made after selecting the appropriate cluster are available from the manual controls for focus, aperture, and optionally exposure compensation and shutter speed. The Q menus essentially are confined to serving as configuration tools rather than shooting controls. The result is as close to a point-and-shoot snapshot camera as a camera designed for sophisticated photographers can be.

"Fujifilm also gets this right with its crop-sensor cameras, and as a longtime Fuji user I have tried to make my X-T5 as simple as possible to operate, but the Fuji user agent never achieves the minimalism and clarity of its Leica counterpart. Does this justify the enormous price differential between a Leica Q and an interchangeable-lens X-T[x]? Depends on the user, I guess, but as I get older and more irritable, a congenial shooting experience becomes increasingly important."

Mike replies: Everything in this comment is good, but I'll especially second that last sentence. See my short post from 2019 called "Killing Themselves Softly With Complexification-Saturation."

Terry Letton: "Re 'Leatherette.' Can’t we just say plastic, i.e., fake leather?"

Mike replies: Actually "leatherette" is the correct term. It generically covers any sort of outer body cladding which can be anything from real lizard skin to rubber "armor" to vinyl. An exhaustive list would be difficult to compile as it's not information which is routinely given as a spec, and, with old film cameras, it's something that's user-replaceable—I doubt very many older MMM camera aficionados have not tried customizing an old film camera with one of the offerings from Cameraleather.com (note that the website is not fully functional. Probably best to call).

Calling it "plastic" would be confusing at best because it's too nonspecific; "leatherette" might not be literally correct in many cases but at least it communicates, to photographers anyway, what's being talked about.

EH: "The Pentax FA 43mm ƒ/1.9 Limited is also the only Limited to have been released for Leica as the SMC Pentax L 43mm ƒ/1.9 Special. It even comes with a matching finder. You can still find them on eBay."

Tom Duffy: "Finally, the curse is broken! A 'Q' that isn't a 28mm. I'd have preferred a 50mm but this is a big step in the right direction; 43mm is a great all around focal length for general purpose photography. Image stabilization, macro capability and a good sensor. All in an unaffordable package. I joke that my Canon R5 with 28mm pancake lens is a poor man's Leica Q, as if an R5 could be a poor man's camera except where Leica is concerned."

Thom Hogan: "When 'normal' has been defined as an angle of view anywhere between 34.5° horizontal (58mm lens) and 48.5° horizontal (40mm lens), the folk doing the defining need to provide just a bit more explanation, don't you think?"

[Ed. note: Ask and we shall receive:]

Craig Stocks: "The definition of a 'normal' lens is actually quite a bit more complex and mathematical. It includes print size and viewing distance. A normal lens presents the same angle of view as the print at a particular viewing distance. For instance, the angle of view of a 50mm lens on 35mm film roughly matches a 5x7 or 8x10 print held roughly at arms length. It’s a mathematical convenience that it happens to also roughly match the film diagonal. A photo taken with a wide-angle lens printed larger and/or held closer will look normal. Clyde Butcher uses this principle by making large prints that when viewed typical room or gallery distances gives the viewer an immersive experience as if they’re standing there experiencing the scene."

Mike replies: Ansel Adams made extra-large prints for a spell in an effort to accommodate the viewing experience in larger museum and gallery spaces. John Szarkowski (Head of the Photography Department at the Museum of Modern Art 1962–1991) rather cattily commented to the effect that Adams's large prints were virtuoso pieces because they looked almost as good as his smaller ones.

Jeff: "The Leica WATE (16/18/21 Wide Angle Tri-Elmar) can be used at intermediate focal lengths like a true zoom. I think think might be from your article at the old Luminous Landscape…cool: 'I received an email recently from my friend Harold M. Merklinger to the effect that he and his associates from the LHSA were told at Photokina that the WA-TE, unlike the earlier Tri-Elmar, was a true zoom and could be used at any focal length, not just at the 16–18–21mm settings. This was easy enough to try out, and indeed this is the case. Very cool, especially when used with the Universal Wide Angle Finder M which also allows in-between settings."

Ilkka: "Excellent write up. Thank you. Made my day."

Mike replies:  :-)

Kenneth Tanaka: "I've been shooting exclusively with my Leica Q3 43 for five straight days now (10/4/2024). It's a nearly identical experience to shooting with my Q3 (28mm), except, of course, for the focal length. This is not really a review but I can offer my thoughts as a long-time Leica shooter.

"First and foremost I'd say that the 43mm APO-Summicron ƒ/2 lens is easily the finest lens of any brand I've ever used. (The previous distinction might have gone to the 28mm Summilux ƒ/1.7 on my Q3.) The color, the corner-to-corner detail, the contrast, the lack of distortions is simply unreal.

"Unexpectedly, I have found the 43mm just a bit narrow-feeling! I suspect this may be due to years using the Q's 28mm lens...eye/muscle memory? I thought that 40mm might be perfect for me...but not quite yet.

"In sum, Leica has now firmly established a uniform photographic experience throughout their camera lines. From the D-Lux 8 through the latest M, SL, and now Q cameras, you will feel instantly familiar with any Leica camera in you hands. Plus, it's an absolutely functionally efficient, unobtrusive experience. That's not for nothing. The only camera brand that tops it (albeit with fewer models) is Hasselblad's X system. Additionally, the same 60-MP sensor is now used in Leica's Q3, Q3 43, SL3, and M11/M11P/M11D cameras.

"Having said this, is the Q3 the ultimate tool for most people? Probably not. Honestly, the Q cameras always feel a bit too bulky for what they are, owing no doubt to their glass-laden full-frame lenses. Also, few people need 60-MP files (although you can shoot at 36 MP or 18 MP with the Q3's), certainly not for 'social media.' You can make very large, detailed prints from a 60-MP file, but very few will. I really do wonder if Ricoh's GRIIIx, or any smallish ILC with a good 40mm, might not be 'ideal' for most of us.

"I understand the naysayers' criticisms, especially the $7,000 price tag. Gah! But when the dust settles I really encourage folks to try to rent a Leica Q3 for a week and give it a look for yourself."

Mike replies: Thanks for the firsthand experience! Exciting.

I can give you one tip (that's all it is) for that "narrow feeling" you talked about. For me, with 28mm and wider I tend to think "scene" as I'm looking around. With 50mm and narrower, I tend to think "object." The focal lengths in the middle (35mm, 40mm, and 45mm) are ones that (for me—YMMV) are reasonably neutral, such that it can be versatile in terms of organizing pictures. So my suggestion would be to try getting used to your unaccustomed 43mm by thinking "object" as you look around while shooting; that might help speed up the process of getting comfortable with it.

You're a very experienced photographer so maybe this suggestion is coals to Newcastle for you, but it's possible it might help someone.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Ed Hawco: "I would love to have a Q3 (the original; 28mm is 'natural' to me) but it’s way out of my price range. However, the comment about usability almost tips the balance towards me selling a kidney and getting one. I’ve been complaining about digital camera usability (on this blog and elsewhere) for almost 20 years and it looks like the Q3 might actually come close to the de-gagetizing that digital camera controls so desperately need."

Since Then, Crickets (MacArthur Fellows Class of 2024)

Sadly, there is, once again, no still photographer on this year's list of MacArthur Fellows. There often isn't, but for some reason this year it feels more elegiac—the recipients' list is often carefully crafted for inclusiveness, gender balance, and of course the coolness level and social significance of whatever the recipients are engaged in. Like a little microcosm of what enlightened intellectuals are finding worthy of approval in the present moment. Still photography has been conspicuously missing as a category for a while now—the last photographer to win a Fellowship was Dawoud Bey in 2017. And since then, crickets. Before that, there was one in 2015, 2013, two in 2012 (peak year of digital camera sales, as it turned out), 2009 (a photojournalist no less! You go, Lynsey), 2005, 2002, and so on.

I didn't go back much further than that, but surely we have had dry spells before. Yet it's beginning to seem accusatory, like our whole category is being deliberately overlooked as being obsolescent if not quite obsolete. (You know, like bloggers, which never was a category at the MacArthurs.) Sometimes we have to have other words added, like "...and Video Artist," plain old "Photographer" no longer being sufficient on its own. On the relevance front, people who make violins appear to be slowly catching up with us, which shouldn't worry me, but does. Benoît Rolland, "Stringed-Instrument Bow Maker," was a Fellow in 2012. Maybe I'm being sensitive, but that feels just a little specific.

A MacArthur is the best grant that rogues of our sort can possibly win. It currently pays $40,000 every three months for five years, with no strings attached. That's more coin than a lot of artists ever see in one pile.

"You're an artist? Aisle 12."

And it might be too much responsibility for some of us, come to think. Consider that Raoul Hague had to have someone go with him when he drove around looking for wood to make into sculptures, because otherwise he would get hopelessly lost and not show up for dinner. Somebody had to be assigned to go with him who could keep track of his wanderings and help find the way home. Andrew Wyeth, when he got rich, got himself an "opulent shearling coat" from Europe and replaced his former "painting chair"—he would sit on the hood of a strategically positioned Jeep, resting his feet on the front bumper—with a gussied-up Stutz Blackhawk so that, when he wanted to paint or sketch outside in the intemperate months, he could keep the heater on, sit on the roof, and dangle his feet inside the car through the sunroof to keep his tootsies toasty.

Andrew Wyeth's coat and car. Give an artist money
and before you know it he looks like a pimp.

Artists don't tend to deal with money all that much better than athletes, is all I'm saying. Still, it will be a relief when this dry spell at the MacArthurs is finally broken. Even if it's only a matter of pride.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

robert e: "Wow! A. Wyeth as pimp! Thanks for a mind-blowing treat! Anyway, while artist Wendy Red Star is not exclusively a still photographer, a significant portion of her body of work consists of still photography, and it seems that the majority of the rest of her work incorporates still photography in some way. I would vote her into the club, personally, but judge for yourself."

Mike replies: The zig-zag patterns of those backgrounds look a lot like AI, don't they?

Jozef: "I am from Belgium. I have a Masters degree in Fine Arts. I do not understand a single thing from this writing. What is this all about???"

Mike replies: "The MacArthur Fellowship is a $800,000, no-strings-attached award to extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential." —From the MacArthur Foundation website.

They're colloquially called "genius grants," awarded every year without application by an anonymous committee. The money was left by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur, an insurance billionaire and his wife. The Foundation is based in Chicago. There are usually two dozen or so "geniuses" awarded every year. They can come from any field. Although the MacArthur Foundation is only the 12th largest in the U.S., it's the one that gives the largest amounts to artists, much more than better-known institutions such as the Pulitzer Prize ($15,000) and the Guggenheim Fellowships ($30–55,000). A photographer get one of the grants every now and then. Someone on the committee really likes violin.

MacArthur didn't set up the genius awards himself. He endowed a foundation and appointed a board of directors, and famously told the directors, "I figured out how to make the money. You fellows will have to figure out how to spend it."

David L.: "I know a MacArthur Award winner. Her work ethic is unparalleled. And her generosity and kindness are in another league. It’s not a matter of luck; one has to excel like few others. She remains on an unreal creative schedule several years later. She embodies the talent and spirit that is needed."

Greg Heins: "Quite a while ago I was at a photographer's party with about a hundred other people. We were all given raffle tickets and the prize was one of the photographer's prints. When the winning number was read, there was a moment's silence and then a voice from the back, 'Oh my god, it's me! It's me! I never win anything! I can't believe it.' As the winner advances through the crowd, another voice comes out, 'dude, you got a MacArthur.' I was stunned to think I was in the same room as someone who had received a MacArthur. No idea who it was, though."

Grant Petersen Profile

There's a nice article in the September 23rd issue of The New Yorker about Grant Petersen, of Rivendell Bicycle Works, in Walnut Creek, California, East of Berkeley. Grant used to be a TOP reader. He commented for a period of time, and when I was modifying my Trek bike, Gruesome, he kindly sent me a pair of albatross handlebars to use. I haven't seen Grant around here for a number of years, most likely because...well, perhaps for the same reason I never talk about bicycles; he already has a hobby. Although he is pictured on the Rivendell website hiding his face behind a camera!

Alas, Gruesome languishes in my garage. She isn't worth anything more than peanuts and would take some work to make roadworthy again, so there she sits.

Rivendell Roaduno

But maybe there's a lot we can learn from Grant's attitude toward cycling. He bucks the trends, and isn't in favor of taking tech so fake-seriously. You know, the culture of weekend cyclists wearing racing gear and riding fragile ultra-lightweight racing bikes. I see them pass by here on the Lake road all the time. (They're the only denizens of the Lake road too serious to wave back when they pass you! Although a few of them do.) You'd think it was all about the getup and the gear. His company builds steel-framed bikes with upright handlebars and comfortable seats. He thinks cycling should be fun and part of normal life. A way to go to the grocery store and go to work and get from here to there.

It occurred to me that there's a lot there we could pull out of the article and apply to photographing. Primarily, that it's not really that big a deal. I've noticed over the years that a lot of ambitious people get serious about photography for a while, put time and effort into creating a body of work, find that it earns them just about nothing in terms of money, respect, renown or other reward, and then migrate to other, more sensible ways of occupying their time—while at the same time continuing to enjoy photography in a more casual and continuing way.

There's nothing wrong with that. Photography is fun; it improves your relationship with the world and with people, it provides you with reminders of your path through your days. Your occasional "hits," when everything works and you get a nice result, well, those occasions can be wonderfully satisfying. You don't need the photographic equivalent of the spandex costume and the carbon-fiber bike frame. You can just have a nice camera that you keep in good tune and don't mind taking along with you when you go places.

It might be true (as well as ironic) that we can increase our engagement and involvement with photography by taking it more casually and relaxing about it more. Photographs are as numerous as raindrops or snowflakes and most of them last about as long. Getting out with a camera is a way of having fun, a means of poking about the world and seeing it better, a way of meeting and engaging with people. What it's not so great at, unless you really work at it and are bursting with energy and blessed with business skills, is helping you make a living or become famous as an artist.

Check out that article about Grant (I think it's available to non-subscribers, though I'm not sure—you'll have to let me know) and see if any of it applies to photography for you. It made me think, anyway, and that's not easy to do.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

David Blankenhorn: "Like motorcycling, bicycling is actually multiple sports with multiple tribes following the different types of machines, one tribe for each type of machine. And it’s seemingly a much bigger gap between them than between Fujifilm camera aficionados and, say, Sony users. Or Leica vs. everybody else. Even in the days of film. Mr. Peterson is the avatar of one of the smaller bike tribes."

John Bennett: "I have known Grant for two and a half decades, and I would say the biggest misunderstanding about him is that he dislikes e-bikes. Not true. Not even close. In fact, he appreciates the access to cycling that they give many people, and how—undeniably—they are one less car on the road."

Stephen Jenner: "Interesting, Mike. I modified a Columbus SL frame to look more or less like your picture above, and I rode it a lot.

"I originally bought the bike complete. It had Campagnolo Nuevo chainset and derailleur. Millions of gears—if I remember correctly, three on the pedal end, and seven at the wheel, 21? And dropped handlebars.

"I started riding it to the office, about twelve miles each way. Unfortunately I had reason to brake sharply when a car emerged from the back of a red bus and the bike threw me over the handlebars.

"I got up, picked the bike up and started wheeling it back to the nearest phone kiosk. This was BM (before mobiles). My face was scraped and my arms were painful. I was in the kiosk struggling to make a call for help, and a little old lady opened the kiosk door and asked if I was OK. I said yes, and she said, 'no you are not,' and ushered me out, and then she dialed 999 for an ambulance, and myself and the bike were carted away to the nearest hozzie, where X-rays showed that I had two broken arms and a broken scaphoid in my left wrist.

"When I had recovered, I set about repairing the bike, and this time, I fitted a set of French handlebars, which made the bike look very similar to the one in your picture.

"I rode that bike for many years and then left it in my garage for a few more years, before some chap answered my advert and bought the thing for £40.... He got an absolute bargain.

"I still have a bike in the garage. This one is a Marin which I had given to my son when he was 15. He had fitted an electric motor and used it to commute to work, right up until he met a girl and made me and the wife grandparents.

"He now lives in Anglesey, where he is painstakingly restoring a catholic presbytery which stands on around two acres of land, some of which is immaculate, and some of which is still overgrown, and that bit furnishes him with penny buns (a.k.a. ceps). If I am around during the seasons when they are sprouting, I have a fried egg from one of his chickens, black pudding, and a fried cep, all for free; the ceps cost a fortune in London delis, and it is not possible to get a fresh egg, which lose their shape within a day....

"A really special 'full English'...in Wales."

Ed. note: A cep, from the French cèpes, is a porcini mushroom. A 'full English' means a full English breakfast. Anglesey is an island off the northwest coast of Wales with history going back to before the Romans.

Jim Kofron: "Ahh, I first heard about Rivendell on this website, at least a decade ago. And I was fascinated by their ethos, and was pretty sure that if I ever returned to cycling, I would look into their bikes. Sure enough, about four years ago I was ready for my midlife crisis vehicle—a Riv Platypus. Set up with friction shifters (the only kind of shifting I've ever known) and rim brakes (ditto), I rode it to Pilates this morning. It has a lovely front basket for rides to the grocery store. It's nice to live in an area where I feel safe enough to ride. The bike is a piece of usable art—it's beautiful, functional, and fun. And Rivendell does sell lycra (padded underwear)—but their logowear is mainly hats and T-shirts. It was a great article in The New Yorker, and I want to thank you again Mike, for introducing me to them....

Mike replies: I hate to say it but it was fully 15 years ago. Here's the original post about Gruesome. Note that the next post after that was "The Point of Sufficiency," which became mildly famous for a bit.